food(8) for thoughthttps://food8forthought.wordpress.com
Cogitations, consternations and contemplationsThu, 01 Sep 2016 08:58:48 +0000en
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngfood(8) for thoughthttps://food8forthought.wordpress.com
Plato’s chair and why did the chicken cross the road?https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/platos-chair-and-why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road/
https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/platos-chair-and-why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road/#respondThu, 01 Sep 2016 08:58:48 +0000http://food8forthought.wordpress.com/?p=122http://www.science20.com/diminishing_view/blog/interlude_how_platos_chair_has_been_destroying_world
]]>https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/platos-chair-and-why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road/feed/0eludomOf the Cubs, Politics and Religeonhttps://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/of-the-cubs-politics-and-religeon/
https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/of-the-cubs-politics-and-religeon/#respondSun, 31 Jul 2016 11:44:59 +0000http://food8forthought.wordpress.com/?p=120Where is your hope? What’s true? Why do people get upset about
politics? Because their hope is that the “right” candidate will win
and that victory will somehow make their life (country, world…)
better. But that hope is uncertain and for many given, the current
state of the US presidential election process, demonstrably false.

So what do you do with false hopes? Despair? Emulate Chicago Cubs
fans and hope in spite of 116 consecutive years of failure? I think we
can learn from the Cubs fans (and people who play the lottery). They
can live well adjusted lives and not be overcome by anger or despair
because they know that in the end the awful truth (which the numbers
tell them) does not really matter. They have jobs, families and
friends where the truth is (maybe) not as awful as the Cubs record and
hope may not be as misplaced.

But what if the hope is misplaced? What if we are guaranteed to have
a political candidate (and election winner) we can’t stand? Or if your
financial situation, family or health fall apart? Rome fell. We each
get 80 years or so if we are ?un?lucky. I’m 54 now.

I know where I’m putting my hope, and it’s not in the political
system, this country or even in this life (or the Cincinnati Reds,
*sigh*). “Christ is risen”, “He is risen indeed”.

Nothing sabotages your productivity quite like bad habits. They are insidious, creeping up on you slowly until you don’t even notice the damage they’re causing.

Bad habits slow you down, decrease your accuracy, make you less creative and stifle your performance. Getting control of your bad habits is critical, and not just for productivity’s sake. A University of Minnesota study found that people who exercise a high degree of self-control tend to be much happier than those who don’t, both in the moment and in the long run.

Some bad habits cause more trouble than others, and the nine that follow are the worst offenders. Shedding these habits will increase your productivity and allow you to enjoy the positive mood that comes with increased self-control.

Impulsively surfing the internet. It takes you 15 consecutive minutes of focus before you can fully engage in a task. Once you do, you fall into a euphoric state of increased productivity called flow. Research shows that people in a flow state are five times more productive than they otherwise would be. When you click out of your work because you get an itch to check the news, Facebook, a sport’s score, or what have you, this pulls you out of flow. This means you have to go through another 15 minutes of continuous focus to reenter the flow state. Click in and out of your work enough times, and you can go through an entire day without experiencing flow.

Perfectionism. Most writers spend countless hours brainstorming characters and plot, and they even write page after page that they know they’ll never include in the book. They do this because they know that ideas need time to develop. We tend to freeze up when it’s time to get started because we know that our ideas aren’t perfect and what we produce might not be any good. But how can you ever produce something great if you don’t get started and give your ideas time to evolve? Author Jodi Picoult summarized the importance of avoiding perfectionism perfectly: “You can edit a bad page, but you can’t edit a blank page.”

Meetings. Meetings gobble up your precious time like no other. Ultra-productive people avoid meetings as much as humanly possible. They know that a meeting will drag on forever if they let it, so when they must have a meeting they inform everyone at the onset that they’ll stick to the intended schedule. This sets a clear limit that motivates everyone to be more focused and efficient.

Responding to e-mails as they arrive. Productive people don’t allow their e-mail to be a constant interruption. In addition to checking their e-mail on a schedule, they take advantage of features that prioritize messages by sender. They set alerts for their most important vendors and their best customers, and they save the rest until they reach a stopping point in their work. Some people even set up an autoresponder that lets senders know when they’ll be checking their e-mail again.

Hitting the snooze button. When you sleep, your brain moves through an elaborate series of cycles, the last of which prepares you to be alert at your wake up time. This is why you’ll sometimes wake up right before your alarm clock goes off – your brain knows it’s time to wake up and it’s ready to do so. When you hit the snooze button and fall back asleep, you lose this alertness and wake up later, tired and groggy. Worst of all, this grogginess can take hours to wear off. So no matter how tired you think you are when your alarm clock goes off, force yourself out of bed if you want to have a productive morning.

Multitasking. Multitasking is a real productivity killer. Research conducted at Stanford University confirms that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. The researchers found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information cannot pay attention, recall information or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.
But what if some people have a special gift for multitasking? The Stanford researchers compared groups of people, based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers – those who multitasked a lot and felt that it boosted their performance – were actually worse at multitasking than those who liked to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another. Ouch!

Putting off tough tasks. We have a limited amount of mental energy, and as we exhaust this energy, our decision-making and productivity decline rapidly. This is called decision fatigue. When you put off tough tasks till late in the day because they’re intimidating, you save them for when you’re at your worst. To beat decision fatigue, you must tackle complex tasks in the morning when your mind is fresh.

Using your phone, tablet or computer in bed. This is a big one that most people don’t even realize harms their sleep and productivity. Short-wavelength blue light plays an important role in your mood, energy level and sleep quality. In the morning, sunlight contains high concentrations of this blue light. When your eyes are exposed to it directly, the blue light halts production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and makes you feel more alert. In the afternoon, the sun’s rays lose their blue light, which allows your body to produce melatonin and start making you sleepy.
By the evening, your brain doesn’t expect any blue light exposure and is very sensitive to it. Most of our favorite evening devices – laptops, tablets, televisions, and mobile phones – emit short-wavelength blue light, and in the case of your laptop, tablet and phone, they do so brightly and right in your face. This exposure impairs melatonin production and interferes with your ability to fall asleep as well as with the quality of your sleep once you do nod off. As we’ve all experienced, a poor night’s sleep has disastrous effects upon productivity. The best thing you can do is to avoid these devices after dinner (television is OK for most people as long as they sit far enough away from the set).

Eating too much sugar. Glucose functions as the “gas pedal” for energy in the brain. You need glucose to concentrate on challenging tasks. With too little glucose, you feel tired, unfocused and slow; too much glucose leaves you jittery and unable to concentrate. Research has shown that the sweet spot is about 25 grams of glucose. The tricky thing is that you can get these 25 grams of glucose any way you want, and you’ll feel the same – at least initially. The difference lies in how long the productivity lasts. Donuts, soda and other forms of refined sugar lead to an energy boost that lasts a mere 20 minutes, while oatmeal, brown rice and other foods containing complex carbohydrates release their energy slowly, which enables you to sustain your focus.

Bringing It All Together
Some of these habits may seem minor, but they add up. Most amount to a personal choice between immediate pleasures and lasting ones. After all, the worst habit is losing track of what really matters to you.

Will you (or your grandkids) have your tweets in 80 yerars ? What if twitter goes the way of myspace? Large government agencies or corporations may (or may not) have your data, or they may not care, may not provide access, etc. if there his no commercial value.

We are making some major changes in our farm to keep the farm profitable and sustainable, and to reduce our work load. We are closing our farm store and self-service egg refrigerator at the end of the year. We have frozen chickens, convenience packs, honey, Everyday Miracles Salve and lamb available as long as supplies last. Next year we will be selling strictly wholesale to stores. We will continue to produce our pasture raised eggs and sell them in the stores that are currently carrying them and will likely add a few new stores….

Much of “Sustainable Agriculture” is not Profitable Or Sustainable…

]]>https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/farm-store-closing-2/feed/0eludomFarm Store Closinghttps://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/farm-store-closing/
https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/farm-store-closing/#respondSat, 21 Nov 2015 11:03:32 +0000http://food8forthought.wordpress.com/?p=86If you like to eat (in the US at least), read this Farm Store Closing. And maybe this A Short History of the USDA.
]]>https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/farm-store-closing/feed/0eludomHistory: The Beatles killed the Apple II, we all lost.https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/history-the-beatles-killed-the-apple-ii-we-all-lost/
https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/history-the-beatles-killed-the-apple-ii-we-all-lost/#respondSat, 14 Nov 2015 12:34:44 +0000http://food8forthought.wordpress.com/?p=84Apparently the Beatles (Apple Corps.) trademark lawsuit against Apple Computer was the death knell for the Apple II.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer. We all lost.

Harrison’s “Sue Me, Sue You Blues” is apt:

“Sue Me, Sue You Blues”

You serve me
And I’ll serve you
Swing your partners, all get screwed
Bring your lawyer
And I’ll bring mine
Get together, and we could have
a bad time

It’s affidavit swearing time
Sign it on the dotted line
Hold your Bible in your hand
Now all that’s left is to
Find yourself a new band . . .

We’re gonna play the sue me, sue
you blues
We’re gonna play the sue me, sue
you blues

Hold the block on money flow
Move it into joint escrow
Court receiver, laughs, and thrills
But in the end we just pay those
lawyers their bills

When you serve me
And I serve you
Swing your partners, all get screwed
Bring your lawyer
And I’ll bring mine
Get together, and we could have
a bad time

All problems are not DevOps problems. “The cloud” does not make all problems go away. Sometimes we loose perspective…

]]>https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/cloud-computing-and-devops-cant-fix-bad-decisions/feed/1eludomGithub: alt.sources.* rides again, on steroids.https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/github-alt-sources-rides-again-on-steroids/
https://food8forthought.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/github-alt-sources-rides-again-on-steroids/#respondSat, 02 May 2015 21:03:17 +0000http://food8forthought.wordpress.com/?p=78It’s back to he days of alt.sources.*. With the advent of github, I seem to be building my favorite tools from sources again most of the time. They work better, faster with no waiting on packagers or vendors.

For something I was working on, I wound up having to clone part of a git tree into a new repository, which turned out to be surprisingly hard. This helped:

Things seem to have come full circle. Back before RPM and apt-get we used to pull the latest source out of the local alt.sources.* Usenet archives and build everything (to this day I have a ~/src/ or ~/build/ directory on many systems, but it’s migrating to ~/git/${GITHUB_USERNAME}/package